In the 1980s and ’90s, Colorado Springs was home to a vibrant underground music scene — punk, post-punk, punk-jazz and even metal — much of which later languished in shoeboxes of cassette tapes, dusty flyers and old photographs.
Musician Danny Stewart, owner of Pete’s 9mm Rec Hords, spent months digging through those boxes to produce a third volume of Colorado Springs Underground. The series preserves songs from local bands that had played between 1983 and 1994.
“It is another deep dive into this sneaky and tricky Colorado Springs music scene,” Stewart said. “This is a lot of hidden gems of bands of come and gone.”
Much of the archive relied on cassette recordings — the kind made by placing a boombox in the corner of a dive bar or basement. Stewart said the tapes contained more than just sound.
“Everybody knew everybody, and if you didn't know somebody, someone would come up and say hi to you and someone would pull you in and go, ‘Hey, come and hang out with us,’” Stewart said. “It was fun, I want to say inclusive … very down to Earth.”
The compilation encompasses a broad range of sound: metal riffs, instrumental stretches, acid-punk jazz. Forgotten recordings were tracked down, and 300 copies of each record were pressed. Stewart also produced a hand-screened magazine featuring band bios, flyers and stories.
He recalled one of his own memories while putting the albums together:
“At one point, I told my friend, I said, ‘Hey, you don't like this guitar. Can I break it?’” Stewart remembered with a chuckle. ”So at the end of the song, I swung it and it bounced back and hit my knee and it hit my ankle and almost broke my ankle in the process of trying to be cool.”
For Stewart, the project was both preservation and passion.
“Almost kicking doors in to get stuff and to create these records to have for everybody to have and cherish,” he said. “It's a conversation piece. It's also a big chunk of Colorado Springs music history.”
He feared that without efforts like his, the sound of the city’s underground might vanish “into thin air,” he said.
Stewart funded the project himself. The hand-printed covers, pressing, digitizing — all of it was a labor of love. He said it was done “for the love of Colorado Springs,” and also for the love of music.
“Once it's in your blood, you can't get it out,” Stewart said. “It's a beast that you feed and you respect and you love.”
Volume 3 of Colorado Springs Underground 1983-1994 was released on a Friday. It and previous volumes of Colorado Springs Underground are available at independent record stores and on Bandcamp.
